Urethanes are prepared conventionally by reacting alcohols with isocyanates. The characteristic of this class of compound, i.e., of the urethanes, is the urethane group —O—CO—NH—. An alternative in the generation of urethane groups is the reaction of a cyclic carbonate with a primary amine. The particular feature of this synthetic access to urethanes is that there is no need to use isocyanates as raw material. The skilled person refers to urethanes accessible via the latter synthesis route as “non-isocyanate urethanes” (NIUs). On the basis of their free OH group, NIUs are capable of further chemical modifications.
For the NIUs, for example, esterification or transesterification with acrylic acid derivatives is known; cf., e.g., US2005/0113594, US2004/0236119, U.S. Pat. No. 7,045,577, U.S. Pat. No. 7,329,773, US2007/0197820. These acrylic compounds thus prepared find use as crosslinkable coatings.